Glossary: Questions

I come from an improv background which advocated NO QUESTIONS. The core reasoning around this rule is based on very sound, scene building principles. A questions doesn't usually add information to a scene. And what's worse, a question typically demands that your partner supply additional, specific information.
A question is usually asked to avoid defining something or to avoid providing information. "What are you doing?" is a typical, blatant example. But more subtle examples can be easily found, such as: "Why did you do that?"; "Where are you taking that?"; and "How long have you been there?". All of these accept the partner's offer, but do not add anything to the scene. This is one form of wimping.

Instead of asking these questions, the performer should directly provide the answer. "What are you doing?" becomes "Please stop chopping down that tree!". "Why did you do that?" becomes "I hate when you become so competitive". "Where are you taking that?" can become "Mother needs that money, now". And finally, "How long have you been there?" is stronger as "Please don't tell anyone you saw me take the diamond". Each of these statements add more to the scene, giving something to the partner to work with.

If you catch yourself asking a question during a scene, you can recover by immediately answering the question. Then it appears like a rhetorical question was asked. In the previous paragraph, each question could have been immediately followed by its strong statement counterpart, creating a 2 line, question/answer dialog that sounds natural.

As a final thought, keep in mind the reasoning behind the rule. It's not that all questions are inherently bad. The real issue is whether a question adds information to a scene or requires the questioned player to add information. The question "When are you going to stop making a fool of yourself?" doesn't really require an answer. It adds its own information to the scene. That's the real test of whether a player has avoided wimping.